1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to data processing systems and in particular, the present invention relates to data processing systems for displaying icons. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to data processing systems for scaling icons to fit a display area.
2. Description of the Related Art
Data processing systems commonly use icons to represent an object that can be manipulated by a user of the data processing system. Typical objects include programs, documents, images, sound files, video files, and macro instructions. The advantage of icons are that they serve as visual mnemonics and allow users to control certain computer actions without having to remember commands or type them in at the keyboard. Icons are a significant factor in the user-friendliness of graphical user-interfaces.
Data processing systems utilizing icons have display screens with wide-ranging capabilities. Some data processing systems, such as small handheld devices, have screen sizes as small as three inches by three inches. The small physical size of the screen in such a system limits the amount of information that can be displayed on the screen and still be large enough to be read by a user of the data processing system. In other data processing systems, the physical size of the screen is very large and the screen can display information at a very high resolution. When viewing information designed for a standard screen on such a high resolution system, information appears to be physically compressed. Due to this compression, the displayed information can appear so small that the user is unable to read or recognize the information.
With reference to FIG. 1, there is illustrated a graphical representation of a typical video display 102 with a display screen 104 displaying window 106. This figure depicts a system that may have a small physical size, such as a handheld computer. Within window 106 are displayed icons 108. Due to the small screen size, icons 108 appear very large and they do not all fit within the dimensions of window 106. As a result, several icons are hidden from view and are not readily accessible by the user. In order for a user to gain access to these icons, the user must scroll window 106 down so that the hidden icons can be displayed within window 106. A consequence of scrolling window 106 is that some of the icons located at the top of window 106 will be scrolled beyond the upper dimension of window 106 and become inaccessible. Scrolling the window to gain access to hidden icons diminishes some of the efficiency of an icon.
With reference to FIG. 2, there is depicted a graphical representation of a typical video display 102 with a display screen 104 displaying window 202. This figure illustrates a system that may have a large screen size with the display set at a high resolution mode. Within window 202 are displayed icons 204. Due to the large physical size of the screen and the high resolution display mode, icons 204 appear very small. Due to their small size, icons 204 are difficult to see and read thereby making it difficult to locate and utilize a particular icon. If a desired icon cannot be easily located and utilized, its usefulness is diminished.
Manually scrolling the screen to reveal hidden icons or hunting to find a difficult to identify icon is undesirable and inconvenient. Accordingly, as is apparent from the foregoing description, it would be desirable to provide an improved method of displaying icons on a video screen by scaling the icons within a minimum and maximum size to fit the available area of the video screen.
The present invention relates in general to data processing systems and in particular, the present invention relates to data processing systems for displaying icons. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to data processing systems for scaling icons to fit a display area of a video screen.